


is it too late to come on home?

by volchitza



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-05-31 19:50:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6485308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/volchitza/pseuds/volchitza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karen worries her thumb with her index fingernail, absentmindedly picking at her skin.<br/>The azure glow of her laptop screen reflects on her face in the dark of her silent office; it's too late for anybody else at the Bulletin, but Karen doesn't feel at home anywhere much these days.<br/>The Word document she has open on the screen is blinking regularly at her, as if expecting to be filled, but she has no words to describe the emptiness eating away at her from the inside, scratching at her, digging a hollow in her middle, little by little, with every aimless step she takes, every time she sits at her desk and feels further and further from the person she was before. She doesn't know how to inhabit this new paradigm of her life: a new job, a new house, without her old friends and their evenings at Josie's. A new Karen, changed, in ways she hasn't yet explored.</p><p>--rated mature for the final chapter</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Karen worries her thumb with her index fingernail, absentmindedly picking at her skin.   
The azure glow of her laptop screen reflects on her face in the dark of her silent office; it's too late for anybody else at the Bulletin, but Karen doesn't feel at home anywhere much these days.   
The Word document she has open on the screen is blinking regularly at her, as if expecting to be filled, but she has no words to describe the emptiness eating away at her from the inside, scratching at her, digging a hollow in her middle, little by little, with every aimless step she takes, every time she sits at her desk and feels further and further from the person she was before. She doesn't know how to inhabit this new paradigm of her life: a new job, a new house, without her old friends and their evenings at Josie's. A new Karen, changed, in ways she hasn't yet explored.   
  
The door of her office closes behind her with a soft click. The sound of her heels on the floor keeps her company as she walks down the corridor, a steady rhythm filling her head.   
Clack, clack, clack. Clack, clack, clack.   
Perhaps, if she keeps walking the same patterns for enough time, she can shrug off this uneasiness, the constant feeling of not belonging. In a corner of her mind, she's still waiting for somebody to walk into Ben Urich's office and ask her what the hell she's doing at the Bulletin, even though Ellison wants her there, the interns know her name by now, and they bring coffee for her during the mid afternoon break, too. Perhaps, one day she'll feel as much a part of this office as the newspaper clippings framed on the walls.   
Clack, clack, clack.   
  
She looks outside her window, to the building opposite hers. In one apartment, a girl is sitting on the windowsill with her back resting on the glass, talking on the phone. Karen can't hear her words, but to her, she looks carefree and young in a way she remembers being too long ago, in Vermont, when she still had a brother to tease and love; before the accident, and that darkness which has taken hold of her heart since. Before she knew the weight of a gun in her hand, before her carpet had dented into her knees as she tried and tried to scrub the stain of an innocent man's blood out of it.   
Other figures are shielded to her by curtains, and she can make out only shadows which come and go, suggesting idyllic pictures of calm, everyday lives, with ordinary concerns and worries.   
She had toyed with the image of a Karen filling that role: a domestic, happier Karen, armed with a different kind of hope, and a spotless heart, because that was the Karen whom Matt saw in her. He needed that, she supposes, but Karen had stepped into that person, tried her out, and eventually let go of her, discarding her as she would an ill-fitting dress.   
  
Karen has already mechanically eaten a pre-cooked meal out of her fridge as soon as she's come home, way past dinnertime, so now she turns her lights off, strips of her shirt, then stands motionless, alone, in the middle of her new apartment — which has no bullet holes in the walls, no ghost of blood on the carpet, and no framed pictures of herself with anybody. She holds her shirt in one hand; it’s eerily white in the dark, the mother-of-pearl buttons glinting like eyes.   
A wave of unspeakable sadness finally washes over her, mounting from her chest and closing her throat; so she sobs, and sobs, trying to contain herself with her arms crossed around her ribs, her shirt limply hanging down her side.   
  
The morning sun shines brightly on Karen's freshly washed face, and last night's tears seem more like a memory of a dream. Sadness still lingers in her limbs, but she feels better in the daylight; less alone. The sounds of New York - incessant, briskly alive, sharp - burst into the room through the open window, like an old friend's familiar chatter, invigorating her along with the fresh air.   
  


There are many days like this in her life, lately: fragile, hopeful mornings, getting out of bed and ready, then out of this flat which is still a stranger to her, with strange neighbors and strange keys. The mornings stretch out, her hope wearing thinner with every minute, to her queue for coffee at Wildcard Poker, always too hot to be drank immediately, which she precariously places on the space between the seats in her car, careful at stops not to spill it; then the mornings end at the sight of her office building, where she spends uneventful hour after hour working until there truly are no more reasons to stay, and she goes back home.

 

The usual time for lunch break conveniently passes her by: it’s an excuse like any to avoid Randall, who had asked her out on a date before Christmas, which she had politely refused. She doesn't think he's hiding from her a secret identity as a masked vigilante, but she's not taking any chances, these days.   
She is rationally aware of the fact that she should be doing something active to make new friends, go out, put some color back into her life; but there is always something holding her back - it’s not good for her, she knows, but she can’t, not yet. Not yet, she tells herself. Soon.

  
She spends the entire afternoon at the Bulletin doing research for Krause, currently stationed between 44th and 12th avenue in Hell's Kitchen for an article. 

When Karen finally gets up from the position she had gradually slid in during the past few hours spent on the cold floor of the archive room, she grimaces and lets out an involuntary whimper. Her knees feel ankylosed, stiff, and there's a dull pain in her bottom where she's been sitting without shifting for too long. Feeling trickles back down her legs with a million tiny pin-pricks, which gradually fade away.

  
  


She’s never been here before, but she remembers the address by heart. The building where Frank lives is, well, sort of decadent; the smell is unpleasant, stagnant at best, almost putrid at worst.

The thought of coming here has crossed her mind more times than she cares to admit, truthfully, since seeing him the last time, as a dark, absolute figure in stark contrast against the clouds behind him - and tonight, finally, she led her car to it. She brought a coffee for Frank - black, no sugar - which she hopes is enough of a peace offering. Not that she's sure there's ever been a war between them, or she’s even sure of her own feelings. Deep down, perhaps, she misses him - something about him that she can't find anywhere else. In anybody else.

 

Hesitantly, she rings the doorbell. She tries pushing the button harder when it doesn't work the first time, but it appears to be broken. Her own heart, she realizes, is beating hard against her ribcage - raising her hand to knock on the door makes the possibility of actually finding him real. It's not very late, she supposes; he might very well be home, and come to open the door - and then he'd be there, in front of her, to be confronted. She knocks. The door, at least, is solid. Her mind follows different threads of conversation she might start - what words, and how she might say them. She waits, then knocks again.

Unexpectedly, her stomach drops when Karen realizes there's not going to be any answer. She stands still in front of the closed door, one extra cup of coffee getting cold in her hand, a heaviness she can’t name on her shoulders.

 

She throws away his coffee on the walk back to her car.

He doesn’t live there anymore, she supposes.  _ It makes sense, _ she tells herself.  _ He’s playing a ghost now.  He’s a wanted man. _

She sits in the driver’s seat, finishing her almost completely cold coffee, while her mind wanders. Where might he be, now? Does he ever see her, around the streets of Hell’s Kitchen? Does he know where she lives, after she left her old apartment? She looks for him in crowds, sometimes, when she thinks she has spotted a baseball cap, large shoulders - but he’s never there. Not walking down the street, not in diners, having his liquid breakfast; not even in dark alleys, making his own justice.

She puts down the empty coffee cup, its paper borders stained brown, and picks up the Earth, Wind & Fire cassette from the glove compartment. She looks at it, turning it over between her fingers, before inserting it in the player.

_ We used to sing that song. Imagine me doing that. _

Karen can’t help but smile at the memory - a real, open smile. He’d been sitting where she is now, then, and she’d been too angry and upset to appreciate the moment.

_ Imagine me doing that. _

She does. It almost breaks her heart.


	2. Chapter 2

The place Foggy chose for their meeting, after weeks of dispassionate and infrequent texting, is quite fancy for Karen’s taste - fancier, she would've thought before, than Foggy's, too, but perhaps she knows him less than she liked to presume, or he's just adapting to his new position.

There’s an uneasiness between them that’s as brand new as everything surrounding her now - shiny wine glasses, fine cutlery, immaculate Flanders tablecloths.

Both feel like the other has changed in mysterious ways while they weren’t looking, and now they’re stealing covert glances across the table, as if to catch the other person in a self-revealing moment - a gesture, a look.

“I’m so glad you could find the time to meet,” she starts, bringing the wine glass to her lips.

“Nonsense, Karen. We’re friends. I’m sorry I haven’t been there quite as much, but-”

“You’ve been busy settling into the new firm! Don’t apologize, please,” she hurries to say, placing a hand on his arm and smiling.

Foggy smiles back, and Karen breathes a little more easily. This is Foggy as she remembers him, and it makes her feel warm.

“So, let’s order that food, and then we can talk about how fantastic you’re being at your new job,” she tells him in a brilliant voice, opening the menu. “Everything looks absolutely delicious.”

Foggy’s eyebrows raise up suddenly, as he gives a short laugh and pats his belly. “You’re telling me? Marci is going to greet me with a gym subscription one of these days,” and at that they both laugh, as if a weight has been lifted from them.

  
  


“Goodnight, Sam. Goodnight, Mr. Ellison,” she says, walking out of her office, heading for the exit.

Ellison smiles fondly at her for a brief moment, before resuming his usual neutral expression. “Goodnight, Karen.”

Megan suddenly stands up from her desk, and puts her phone down, a hand on the receiver. “Hey, Karen!”, she calls out, “Come drink with us tonight?”

She opens her mouth to give some apology, then looks at Megan - her lovely hair, buttoned up cardigan, and expectant face - and considers it.

Finally, she smiles, fighting her instinct to just politely decline the offer and go back home, to spend another Friday night alone, wondering if she has enough money to get a cat while she watches old films or tv reruns. “Sure, yeah. Why not. Thank you.”

“Wonderful! Just give me five,” the other woman replies, excited, and goes back to her call.

Karen fidgets, balancing herself back and forth on one heel; she can almost physically feel Ellison’s fatherly gaze on her, gauging her reaction. She looks down to her pointed shoes, letting her hair fall in front of her face.

_ It's no big deal, _ she tries to tell herself.  _ You'll be fine. _

If only she could find her way back to the trusting person she used to be, so easily opening herself up to others.

  
  


The pavement glistens in the dark with the afternoon’s rain, the distance she’s walking punctuated by the echoing sound of her heels and the yellow light of the streetlamps she passes by.

She is usually able to find a parking spot right outside her building, but not tonight, at a much later hour than she usually comes home.

The party was fun - more so than she’d expected going in, she has to admit; some of her colleagues were evidently buzzing with curiosity, eager to know more about her, only restraining themselves out of professional habit: they knew not to scare a source off, but she could see them looking at her intently, like predators on a scent, ready to jump. There was nothing she could really say, of course; her life has been so tangled up in other people’s secrets, lately, that she doesn’t know where those secrets end and her own personal life begins.

Sitting around the two small tables with those people, whose faces are becoming familiar to her day after day, still left her with a seed of hope; it still was, in minor degree, a sense of belonging which had started to grow within her, put down its roots. She smiles to herself, remembering Meg’s knee pressing against hers on the sofa, and how they all laughed at one of her stories, the warmth in her belly a mix of alcohol and excitement.

A footfall, behind her, interrupts her hazy reverie. Karen freezes, her smile dying; her heart starts pounding hard in her chest.

The space in front of her looks emptier than it did before; darker; hurrying down the street, she notices the broken streetlights, and the rows of closed windows, all the lights out.

Her palms and armpits start prickling with cold sweat under her coat. It’s harder to breathe, with her heart beating so hard she almost feels it in her throat. Shadows seem to loom behind parked cars; she tries to look behind her in the reflection of shop windows, but the only thing she catches is the movement of her own hair.

Inside her purse, her fingers brush past her house keys to find, at the bottom of a pocket, her gun. She grips it, firmly, a finger on the safety, trying to breathe through her nose.

The erratic sound of her half-running steps is carried away by the cold wind, insinuating itself inside her coat from her sleeves and neck, whistling in her ears. It whips her hair against her face, tiny sharp slaps on her skin.

_ You’re almost home, _ she tells herself, starting to earnestly run.

 

The door closes behind her with a loud noise, grounding her.

_ Safe. It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m safe. _

She drops her bag on the floor, wobbling in the direction of her bed and falling there, still wearing her coat and shoes.

Panic keeps threatening to close her throat, rising up from her chest, her face burning with hot tears - she gasps to reach a ragged breath, fighting to regain control of her body.

This pain, this panic, her anxiety - she imagines, half delirious, that she'd like to gather them up and fold them like a blanket, in half and then again, until they’d take no more space. She folds and folds and folds again, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, with her hands resting on her stomach, until she can breathe again.

Then, finally, she can slowly get up, peel off her coat and the rest of her clothes, pile them neatly on a chair and go to bed, where she falls in a dark, feverish sleep.

  
  


It’s Megan who greets her first, when she walks into the office the next morning. She has a wide smile, and she covers Karen’s hands with hers when she speaks.

“Good morning! I was starting to think we’d never see you before lunch.”

Karen starts an apology, but Megan squeezes her hands and stops her.

“Don’t worry, please, nobody’s angry. I’m glad you made it, we can go have lunch together.” She stops, watching Karen’s face, before adding: “That’s if you’d like to, of course.”

“No, I -”, Karen stops, then smiles. “I’d love to, actually.”

  
  


She’s sitting across from Meg, having a salad for lunch, when she thinks she sees him across the street - baseball cap, leather jacket, a covered face.

Her fork falls out of her hand into her bowl.

She almost gets up and calls his name. Her lips almost form the sound: “Frank”; it’s almost out of her mouth.

But of course, he’s not there.

He’s not there, but she knows where to find him now.

  
  


The second time she drives to the shed, the sun is still shining in the sky, its light illuminating Karen’s face as she speeds along the road, making her eyes look transparent.

A sort of peace descended over her, as she got into her car and started driving - a peace she knows in moments like this, when she’s focused on a personal mission, when she has a goal. It’s a feeling of calm touching her, pervading through her heart and lungs, spreading to her belly and her limbs.

It’s a beautiful, clear day - the sky is cloudless, blue, and the trees look almost serene. When she steps out of the car, the air is cold and invigorating; she pulls her beanie cap further down on her ears, watching her exhalation of breath form a little white cloud.

Her feet crush the fallen leaves, making a crunching sound as she moves towards the shed.

The walk is shorter than she remembers it. The shed stands, alone, in the middle of a clearing in the wood. The door is closed, apparently bolted, and she can find no sign of him even when she walks around it, intent, prodding at the window, looking for a clue.

“Ma’am, you scared the living shit out of me,” she hears him say. Her heart jumps to her throat. She straightens her back and turns to see him lowering his weapon.

She wasn’t sure how she felt, before, but seeing him now - standing, whole, in front of her - she knows he’s not dead to her. He’s Frank, as she’s always seen him. His face shows bruises - some healing, some fresh and violet, around the eyes, watching her in quiet wonder.

His voice is still soft, though rough; it still makes her stomach clench like a fist.

And then, like a flood, her heart opens, and she’s forgiven him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said this would be the final chapter, but I preferred to cut it in half and post this now. I hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think!

On the drive back, Karen listens to the radio as the sun sets in long stretches of beautiful pinks, oranges and reds that the blue fades into. They paint themselves like watercolors on the light canvas of her face and hair.

 

“I almost took the shot,” he had said, in his gravelly monotone. He was squinting a little to shield his eyes from the sunlight, filtered by the branches into multiple shadows projected on his face in gradient tones.

She had smiled, not missing a beat. “Did you?”

His eyes were warm when he smiled back.

 

Karen realizes, tightening her grip on the wheel in a moment of terrifying, absolute clarity - her stomach twisting - that she’d felt more herself in that clearing, trembling slightly from the cold, surrounded by trees in a wood with Frank, than she ever did in the entire past month.

 

“You don't -  _ live _ here, now, do you?”

She’d felt like the words coming out of her mouth had an inability to convey a true, real meaning - a reflection of what she wanted to say; but that, too, was almost unclear, its edges fuzzy, like an object too close to the eye to be observed.

 

He doesn’t live there, of course - has a new apartment, too, somewhere they don’t ask for much except rent. Karen knows the address, she reflects; she’d gone there a few times, while working on a couple of cases with Nelson & Murdock.

 

“Makes for a sketchy couple of neighbors. Not exactly the white picket fence people, but clean enough.”

“Well, I hope it smells better than the last one,” she had commented, tilting her head to one side; her hair had fallen fluidly off her shoulder, catching the light. Frank had looked puzzled; tilted his head, too, unconsciously mirroring her. “I, uhm… tried to come visit. Once. Brought coffee, too, but then I realized, you couldn’t live there anymore, could you.”

He’d hummed a low “Mmh”, and gave her a sort of nod. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“Anytime,” she’d said in a soft, low voice.

 

“Anytime”, she repeats to herself, almost without emitting a sound.

  
  
  


Karen sits in almost darkness, surrounded by papers spreading over half the surface of her bed.

She yawns, covering her mouth with her hand, then rests her forehead against her fingers for a minute; it’s sweet to close her eyes, and feel the mellow blackness of sleep lulling her, like the gentle embrace of a soft blanket on her shoulders. She can feel consciousness slip away quietly, and nearly gives in to it before opening her eyes wide and inhaling sharply in an effort to awaken.

  
  


Her fingers hover on the cover of the folder with Frank’s name on it for a few moments. The shadow of her hand touches his photograph, clipped to the front: his set features, jaw shut, his hard gaze ahead. The tip of her shadow-finger brushes his hairline gingerly, black in the yellow lamplight. She breathes in and out, feeling her own face slacken, softening, as she focuses on the patch-like scar visible through his short hair, just above his forehead; her lips tingle, thinking of that same scar, less discernible now through his longer hair, as she saw it just a few hours ago, when his gaze was soft, and he smiled at his little joke with her. She withdraws her hand, then, closing her fingers against her palm.

She diverts her attention to the other files, laying open in front of her on the bed, and starts filling them with sheets of paper and photocopies, muttering names and words to herself as she leafs through them to separate the papers into piles.

 

There is no sunlight yet when she wakes up, feeling cold, laying over the covers and documents, crumpled by her body. Her bedside table lamp is still on.

She groans, stretching to flick the switch to turn the light off; unsteadily, she slips under the duvet and falls immediately back to sleep.

  
  


It’s not the same door she is facing now, this morning, in the stark white light of day, and it’s not the same knot in her stomach; yet, she has a peculiar feeling of being tethered to that Karen who stood in front of the closed door to Frank’s old apartment; of resuming from there, in a way, from that evening, like she’s opening a book which had lain unread, half-forgot for a time, to find a bookmark holding her place.

She raises her hand to the doorbell, and pushes the button. This time, it rings; then, she hears the faint sounds of steps, something rustling, a chair being dragged on the floor briefly; footsteps approaching, the door unlocking.

“I brought you breakfast,” she tells Frank when he opens the door, extending a paper bag and coffee cup.

He doesn’t know how to react to this – it’s a kindness he’s grown unaccustomed to. He moves aside to let her in, and she notices that though he looks alert - a leftover from his days as a marine, she supposes - there are little signs - ruffled hair, his shirt hanging over his hipbone, a certain glaze over his eyes - which tell her he’s just woken up.

“Thank you,” he says; his voice is deeper than what she’s used to, and it strikes a chord within her, with the tiniest of aches in her heart, that she knows this about him now, and how he looks with his face marked by a line of his pillow. The intimacy of it catches her off-guard, as he takes the paper bag from her hand - his fingertips, soft, brushing the back of her own fingers, the paper making short crackling noises.

She sets down her own food on the kitchen table and leans against the refrigerator door, her hands behind her back.

“Can I offer you anything, ma’am?” he asks, taking plates out of a cabinet and laying them on the table.

She smiles, a little nervous. “Uh, no, thank you.”

They both sit down, eating their food in an increasingly comfortable silence, glancing openly at the other.

“Fullest breakfast I've had in awhile,” he says once he's done, to which she smiles. He reciprocates for a moment, a sparkle in his eyes, then his expression turns heavy. “I want you to know, ma’am… I did check up on you sometimes. Just making sure you were safe, after what'd happened.” He looks at her, searching every little expression of her face; gazes directly into her eyes. “I meant no disrespect, ma’am. I know you can handle yourself.”

She nods; turns her eyes down, to the bruise on his cheek, more yellow and green now, shaded by a hint of stubble; her lips part, though she doesn't break her silence, choosing to sip her coffee instead.

“I read up on you,” she confesses. “Well, you know, all the articles speculating on the return of the Punisher from the dead and such. And some others,” she adds, watching him closely, “that I suspect were related to you.”

She's rewarded by a small smile - a corner of his mouth, really. “Do you, now.”

“You're keeping busy.”

He scoffs. “Never a dull moment.”

“No,” she says, reflective, almost a murmur; her voice turns mellow. “I’d imagine not.”

  
  


Megan is looking intently at her from across her desk, elbows perched on it.

“What?” Karen asks, biting into her sandwich.

“You - I don’t know. I might be wrong.” She suddenly looks shy, unsure, falling back into her chair. “I don’t want to make assumptions.”

Karen just looks at her, raising her eyebrows in an open invitation to continue.

Megan dips her fork in her salad a couple times, biting her lower lip, then finally shrugs.

“You look so different today. I can’t quite -” she lets her voice trail off; her eyes wander across Karen’s face. “There’s something about your air. Something lighter.”

Karen is breathless for a moment; she feels like Megan has seen through her - to a secret place within her, where a part of her lives, like a small animal - nearly unacknowledged - in the dark - which had fluttered awake this morning.

“I guess I just finally got a good night’s sleep!”

They laugh. Karen can about taste the lie - it has become a bitter currency, second nature.

Ellison interrupts them with a quick knock on the door, immediately followed by his head through it.

“Apologies, ladies. Miss Zhu, could I have a word with Page?”

Megan widens her eyes to Karen in fake alarm, a complicit gesture that makes Karen smile; then picks up her lunch and leaves, with a final look to Karen from the door, and the smallest of sighs.

Ellison waits until the door is closed to speak, arms crossed over his chest.

“You’ve been keeping very busy, lately,” he begins. A smile tugs to the corner of Karen’s mouth, inappropriate and quick, remembering her own words that very morning.

She’s figuring out something to say - about how much she appreciates this job, and how she loves to learn from her colleagues and perform various tasks for them, when Ellison speaks again.

“I have noticed you’re integrating with most people here, at various levels, and I’ve seen some of your work for Hernandez and Krause - very good.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I have also noticed you have been doing some personal work,” he states, in a voice that tells her he’s not leaving the room without a full explanation. “Research of some kind. I would like to know what it is.”

“Sir-”

“Before you try anything - I’m not asking.” He sounds calm; not unfriendly, but firm.

Karen breathes through her nose.  _ Okay, fine. _

“I have been looking for the truth about Frank Castle,” she admits.

Ellison gestures for her to go on, with a rotating movement of his wrist.

She measures the next words on her tongue - they sit heavy on her heart.

“I believe he might be alive,” she says - a murmur, quite; as if she’s afraid of the words. “Though of course - we can’t be sure-”

“I believe there is not the shadow of a doubt,” says Ellison. “The Punisher is most certainly back.”

Karen swallows, looking directly at Ellison.

“At this point we cannot keep silent on the matter anymore - and I would like you to write the article,” he goes on. “You have the most personal outlook on him, and you are the most qualified for it - having met him, and having your idea of his character, of him as a man. I want a draft on my desk in a week.”

He walks to the door, then turns for a moment.

“Karen?”

She snaps her head up.

“Try making that five days.”

Alone, Karen almost laughs to herself.  _ Her idea of him as a man. _

Her phone buzzes, startling her. She picks it up.

It’s a message from Meg.  _ Are you in trouble? _

She stares at the screen until it goes dark.

  
  


She watches Frank approach her car, baseball cap low on his brow even after nightfall, his gait lopsided as he surreptitiously checks his surroundings, before swiftly stepping into the car.

“Good evening,” he greets her, “so, where are we going?”

“I was thinking a diner, perhaps,” she says, scrutinising his profile in the dark for any new bruises he might’ve acquired in the two nights since their last encounter.

He shakes his head, his mouth a hard line. “Mmh, no. Don't wanna take any risks.”

“Surely you must have some place that's safe-”

He turns his head to look at her. “Yeah, ma’am. But I don't wanna take any chances with you there.” His voice grows infinitesimally softer on the last words, fully sincere; Karen feels a distinct pang to her stomach, that closes her throat like a punch; his honesty - the implicit vulnerability glinting in his eyes - falls like stones on the sea-bottom of her belly, settling in the soft sand, soundless, leaving only a vanishing trail of bubbles and a heaviness, there.

“Okay,” she says, her voice strangely raw, looking into his eyes, “where do you want me to go, then?”

 

She drives them north, along the river. Karen has always liked driving: the open road, rolling beneath her tires, line after line after line and the trees on the side of her vision, her hands firmly on the wheel and her feet on the pedals. She can let her mind wander, sometimes on nothing at all, on a speck of dust, on the regular white lines painted on the cement, disappearing an instant after their appearance. She can be an action, rather than her whole self, with all her worries and trouble - she can be the hands on the wheel and the eyes on the road and the feet on the pedals, and the single-minded focused purpose, with the uniform sounds of the road, unraveling like a ribbon, the air hissing around the car, to keep her steady company.

It’s easier to tell him along the way - about Ellison, about her work, about what she’s supposed to write. The words come to her and go through her, as she speeds on the dark road - she’s tuned to him, listening for every movement he makes, the rhythm of his breath, picking up on every turn of his head; Frank’s presence, solid, charges the air inside the car; she feels electric; over-sensitive; on the edge of -- something -- she cannot see.

They stop in a wooded area, not too far from the road. When she turns the engine off, in the silence, she can hear the rustling of the trees, and bats screeching, and night-birds calling.

“I won’t write a single word if you don’t want me to,” she says, finally. “I don’t- above all - I don’t want to risk endangering you. Many still think that you’re dead, and if that’s a protection to you, I can’t be part of those who put you in danger pointing to signs that the Punisher is back.” She turns to look at him, his face only barely visible in the pale moonlight and colorful leds from the dashboard.

“I can’t-” Her voice dies on the edge of the next word; her lip trembles.  _ I can’t lose you, _ she thinks, but the words die in her throat, suffocated.

“I’ll give up on the job if that’s what it takes,” she goes on, in a strained voice.

“I would rather it’d be you writing about me, ma’am, than anybody else - anyone else among those fancy journalists who try to make themselves a name with this story. Those who think this is just that - a story. They don’t get it. But you,” he says, in the softest voice, and Karen looks in his eyes, her heartbeat rushing in her ears, “you understand. You always did. And you look for the truth.”

She feels released of a huge weight - finally, she can  _ breathe _ -

“Whatever you write, ma’am, I’m sure I’ll appreciate it.”

She relaxes back on her seat, letting her arms fall to her sides, and breathes out, closing her eyes.

She doesn’t know where this joy comes from.

The night envelops the car, and them, in a great darkness - a purest one, blacker one, than the city ever knew - and Karen feels they’re the only people awake in the world; the only people of flesh and blood - alive. God, she feels - alive.


	4. Chapter 4

The words rearrange themselves over and over again in her mind, as she walks to the store, as she washes her hair under the warm water of her shower, as she rinses the dishes looking out of the kitchen window. She mutters sentences, constantly rethinking them, while putting food in her shopping cart, or in her car, waiting at a traffic light.

She tortures herself imagining Frank’s face reading them - she cannot write a single word without thinking of him, of what he is going to think. She thinks of him scribbling down in her little black notebook, and she thinks of him typing on her computer. The sentences dance around in her head, some coming forward, some fading into the background.

 

_ The truth is that there are many people who don’t feel protected by the police and courts of law. And why should they? Criminals in this city, in this neighborhood, they don’t feel afraid of the justice system. But the long white skull of the Punisher, the click of the security on his gun being pulled off - that’s what gives them nightmares. _

_ The Punisher gives justice to those who have been failed by a court of law, or by the police. He answers the cries of those who cannot defend themselves; most importantly, those who cannot expect justice through legal means. These people sleep more soundly in their beds thanks to the Punisher. _

 

_ Frank Castle is not a monster. He’s the one killing them. _

 

There are things about him she doesn’t write - aspects of Frank she has gleaned from private moments with him, collected them like snowflakes on her hand, before they melt away. She cannot bring herself to tell the world about his sense of humor, or how he moves his hands when he speaks, or the way he has of tilting his head.

These are the things about him she dwells on in bed, when she’s about to sleep, and her mind wanders.

 

_ Frank Castle is a man who makes hard choices and does hard things not because they are easy for him, but because he can do them - and he knows they must be done. _

_ When you walk home safely tonight, you also owe it to him. _

_ Think about it, the next time you kiss your children to sleep, or you close the door behind you. And if you see him, wherever he may be, remember this. Remember who he is, and what he does, and go on. _

  
  


Ellison puts the pages down, then folds his reading glasses and places them on his desk.

Karen waits, wringing her hands, standing in front of his desk.

“It’s good,” he says, finally. “We can print it - I’ll have it in tomorrow’s paper.”

“I - tomorrow?”

“I’m sorry, do you have any objection to that?”

Karen shakes her head, her hair dancing around her face.

“Good,” he interrupts, before she can get a word out. “Then it’s settled.”

She thanks him, then makes to leave, a feeling of accomplishment mixing with fear inside her chest.

“You really believe in him, don’t you?” Ellison’s voice is gentle.

She turns back, her eyes wet. She hesitates. “Yes,” she admits, gulping down her emotion. “I really do.”

  
  


The thin brown branches outstretch their long-fingered hands towards the white sky, a promise of snow.

Karen shivers in her coat, holding her elbows with her hands, in the short queue to the newsstand. The woman in front of her has a bright red coat - it strikes her as unusual, among the neutral tones and browns and blacks of New Yorkers walking around her, and her own navy blue. She can feel her face freeze in the dry, icy air - she catches a reflection of herself in a glass, white skin pale as if bloodless, with spots of bright red on her nose, ears, lips.

“The New York Bulletin, please,” she asks the woman working at the stand.

“Ah. Been selling like crazy, this morning. It’s that Punisher article, people like it, it’s the talk of the day. Let me tell you, there’s some interesting stuff. If he’s back… well, if I see him, I’m not gonna call no policeman,” she adds, in a confidential tone, burrowing back into her scarf. “Here’s your change.”

Karen shakes her head, smiling. “Oh, no. You keep it. Have a good day.”

 

She pushes his doorbell with her knuckle, holding a tall paper cup.

She sees a flash of light coming through the spyhole, and the door opens; Frank is stepping back to let her in, a hand behind his back to put his gun away.

“Thank you,” she says, walking in. “I’ve brought a coffee for you, and a hot chocolate for me.”

The corner of his mouth goes up, and there’s wrinkles around his eye, warm and liquid and open.

“I see you’ve read it already,” she says, her eyes on the copy of the Bulletin on his kitchen table. “So?” She sucks air in through her mouth, gathering her courage.

“I was right,” he says, his voice low. “You do understand.”

A small, nervous smile tugs at Karen’s lips. There are a million things in that sentence - a million things about him, about her, about them, running underneath the surface like a buried river, and all she can do about it is stand there, the feeling - the closeness, the awful awesome beneath-the-skin closeness - bigger than herself in its unspoken state, filling her lungs and throat, looking at the man in front of her.

“That was brave, what you wrote. There’s gonna be people angry with you.”

“Let them come.”

He laughs, briefly. Suddenly, it’s almost too much - him, there, and the boundaries she doesn’t know anymore, and the spark of attraction she’s feeling for Frank right now, in his wool sweater, clinging to his shoulders and chest.

“I thought,” he starts. His voice is low, almost tender. “I thought you believed I belonged in jail.”

Her heartbeat increases erratically - did she - does she?  _ Not right now, I don’t believe it. _

“I’m trying to keep you out of it, am I not?” she answers, after a time, her eyes dropping to the table. “Shall we sit?”

Something in his face changes, like a window closing on a building. “Yes, of course.”

She sips her chocolate, thick and sweet and hot, warming her stomach, as she watches him.

“You remember that,” she says, breaking the silence, her voice a whisper. “What I said.”

“Of course I do,” he replies - like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Of  _ course _ he does.

_ She wants, she wants, she wants. _

 

Karen hangs up the phone with the office - she has a light flu, she said, nothing to worry about, she’ll probably be back on her feet by tomorrow.

She lies back in bed, eyes closed; she has a headache, which she senses -  _ peripherally _ \- her whole body feels peripheral, not quite hers, now. A general unpleasantness hangs about her, like a gray cloud in the air above her, slowly descending over her, seeping through her arms and shoulders to her bones.

Gray clouds hang heavy in the sky, making everything in the view from her window look colorless and drained of life - drained.

She turns her head the other way; she only sees her bedsheets, and the ends of her hair beside her face. She closes her eyes again and sleeps.

 

Rainwater softly taps on the kitchen window in Frank’s apartment. Karen sits next to it, listening to the gentle sound, like thousands of watery fingers drumming a constant rhythm, drowning out every other thought from her head.

It’s been roughly a week since the last time she’s seen Frank, whose face shows a brand new set of bruises, a stark contrast of violets and purples on his skin, too pale. A vertical line marks the space between his eyebrows, and his lips are only slightly parted as he reads through the files she brought for him; only now and then does he murmur something under his breath, too low for her to catch, or he makes a sound - sometimes a groan, other times something like approval.

Finally, he closes the last folder, turns it over, and taps his nails in a half-closed fist on the table.

“That’s some very thorough work you’ve been doing, ma’am.”

She turns her face to him.

She has collected dossiers about some of the worst criminals in the city - drug lords, mob bosses, known fugitives from justice and their collaborators, prostitution rackets, money launderers. It’s all very detailed - there’s maps, names, dates, various interviews of people she’d chased, bribed, or otherwise persuaded to talk - in sketchy diners at one a.m., sometimes for the modest price of an extra pint of beer. Other times, it hadn’t been quite that easy. She bites her lip.

Frank taps on the folder named  _ Confederated Global Investments (Union Alliance Constructions) _ , looking at her sharply.

“You haven’t stopped coming for Wilson Fisk, either.”

Karen just looks at him - of course she hasn’t. There’s a part of her crying for some normalcy - to be sweet again, happy again, worrying about crime only while reading the newspaper, or listening to the evening news while making dinner, a little shiver then, then on to the next news story, and everything would be fine - not this continuous exhaustion, and the almost utter lack of light in this city.

“Some of the people here can be convinced to talk,” she says instead. “They can help us connect the dots -”

“There’s  _ people here _ who tried to kill you. Do you want them to  _ talk _ , too?”

There’s something in his voice, there; it’s like a punch in her stomach. He’s not cruel, no.  _ You are the knife I turn inside myself, _ she thinks.  _ This, my dear, is love. _ She doesn’t think she ever understood it before now.

They pause; she digests her emotion, little by little, taking slow bites at it - her thirst for vengeance, bitter, and the knife inside her stomach, and his hand offering it.

When he speaks again, his voice is gentle, looking into her eyes.

“Once you step to my side of the line, ma’am, there is no going back.”

“But I have already stepped,” she admits, her throat full of tears. “Oh God,” she whispers to herself, covering her mouth with her hands before breaking into tears, all the unspeakable things that had whispered to her in the dark hitting her like an ocean wave breaking on a rock.

At some point - the tears are blinding, deafening, shutting down every sense in her - she becomes aware of Frank, holding her head to his body, lightly caressing her hair.

 

When the tears stop, and the sobs, and the red-faced gasping for air, they part - a detangling of hair from his hands, her fingers unclenching from his sweater, left with dents in it neither of them smooths down; she turns away from him to wipe her face, a last attempt at modesty.

 

She writes, sitting alone at her desk in her office, words she can never speak out loud. Things that would crumble if she let them out of the cradle of the written page, like a brittle newborn animal that falls on its bone-thin legs, but words which inhabit her nonetheless - she keeps them, undisclosed, in her heart and her stomach and her head. Sometimes, they're in her trembling fingers, wishing with almost a life of their own to reach out and touch him - Frank - on his cheekbone or shoulder or hand. Other times they inhabit her lips, when she has an instinct to kiss him - lightly, just a touch. They're feather-words, soft, all the enchanted sweet things she can never really be anymore, the little dear things he can't do anymore. She wonders, privately, how he must have been when he could allow himself such things.  _ That _ Frank, she knows, truly is dead - rearing his ghost-head, perhaps, in moments with her: a brisk touch of their fingers, the favour of getting coffee for one another, the intimate smile which they share without any words.

She lets these words flow out of her, as if spellbound, and perhaps this is an enchantment of sorts; a feat of magic; she writes the words on the page and she can breathe a little, soothed by them, comforted like by the touch of a hand.

Frank’s hands, she has thought a thousand times -  _ Frank has the softest, most elegant hands _ . She doesn't know how they can be so brutal - but perhaps that's the beauty of it, in a dark and ironic way. She just wishes, with all her might, those hands could be soft with her - just once - once - but his hands do not belong to her, not in the smallest way, not even at all. In her heart, however, perhaps - she does belong to them, in a way she doesn't understand with words, in a way she doesn't understand but in her stomach, and hands, and heart.

In her heart, and deeper still, she is not bound even by her own reason - there, in a soft dark place, she can be - like in a dream, a dream, a dream.

 

She closes the document - doesn't save it. Doesn't need to.

  
  


Karen runs up the steps to Frank’s apartment as silently as she can, the pharmacy bag she carries rustling against her leg.

She catches him closing the door, a large bag on the floor beside him in the dark, brown corridor.

“Sorry I’m late,” she whispers, looking away from his bag, “can I come in?”

He picks up his bag and unlocks the door, letting her in first.

“I had to find another drugstore,” she explains, placing the contents of her bag on the table, “I couldn’t keep asking for ibuprofen and metronidazole to the same three guys on rotation.”

“It’s fine.”

“Will you let me check on your shoulder, at least?”

He takes a moment before he moves away from the door and carefully takes off his jacket, while Karen washes her hands in the kitchen sink.

He has exposed his shoulder for her; standing behind him in the dim light, she sets aside the dressing, bloodstained. Gingerly, her fingertips still warm from the hot water, she touches the edges of his wound, slowly healing.

“Does it hurt?” she asks, feeling a sharp tug of pain in her own stomach at the sight of it - open, raw, red.

“Not much. Is there any sign of infection?”

Another pang to her stomach while she examines the wound again, prodding lightly at the skin.

“Uh, no. Pass me the disinfectant, I'll wash it.”

She is very careful with her ministrations; she likes the methodicity of it, her hands cleaning and poking and dressing and blotting, sometimes rhythmed by his instructions, but lately mostly in silence, intimate, as their breathing grows deeper in their stillness; her mouth so close to the nape of his neck, her fingertips resting unreflectively on his back, familiar.

She puts a fresh, clean dressing on his shoulder; she drops her gaze to his left arm, resting against his body, to the place where she knows he buried a razor blade in his flesh. Her bottom lip trembles; she touches him there, the lightest of caresses, before stepping back.

“I’m done.”

She goes to wash her hands again, reveling in the sensation of the warm water to avoid thinking that she’s the last thing to keep him here before he heads out into the night to tear his wound open again, and get new ones; above all, above all else, she avoids the thought of him never making it back to the apartment.

The last thing he says, before she heads out, is “Thank you, Karen.”

  
  


She hesitates on Meg’s doorstep, her tongue feeling somewhat furry.

“Thank you for the dinner, and the rest of the evening. I had a lot of fun.”

Meg leans on the doorframe; her black hair is down: Karen, light-headed, stares mesmerised, feeling particularly languid, a leftover from the long evening spent shoeless, with her legs bent under her weight on Meg’s sofa, watching television and talking, words flowing between them, studded with delicate sips of wine and laughter.

“Are you sure you don't wish to stay? There's space, and you wouldn't be bothering me at all,” Meg offers, one last time. “It’s very late.” Her fingers crane forward to her, the echo of a begging gesture, -  _ please stay _ \- but she doesn’t lift her hand to touch her friend’s.

Karen shakes her head. “That's very kind of you, really, but I can make it home safely, I promise.”

Meg gives in to a small, defeated smile, then combs a hand through her hair, looking away from Karen. “Okay, well, please let me know when you got home.”

Karen smiles, kisses her cheek, promises: “I will,” and leaves.

 

She closes behind her the door to Frank’s apartment, empty and dark.

Her phone screen blinks at her, white in the black room, telling the time as twenty minutes to four am. She types a quick message to Meg, as promised:  _ Home. Let’s do that again soon. Goodnight. _

She breathes in and out deeply, a little sobered up from the cold air, the silence of the room ringing in her ears. She drops her bag at her feet - a  _ thud _ knocking softly on the floor, and on her skull - then she turns on the light, yellow and not too bright, and pours herself a glass of room temperature water from the kitchen counter.

When she wakes from her brief nap on the sofa, the Punisher is standing in the room.

Karen gets up and walks to him, without a word, almost without any sound at all.

His lungs unfill.

Finally, she raises her hand to his chest, her pale fingers hovering a spot of blood, damp and glistening in the low light.

“Who was this?”

For a time - long, stretching out in heartbeats reverberating in her ears, and his eyes searching earnestly hers - he doesn’t answer; seems to grow pale, briefly.

“Rapist,” he says.

She nods very lightly, her lips gaping; her fingers move on to a cut on his side, across his ribs. “This?” she asks, her voice barely breaking the silence, as if travelling on the current between them.

“Gang member.”

Karen traces a path below the line of the cut, judging its condition with apprehension; her hand moves to map the rest of his torso, inspecting, assessing damage. When she is satisfied, her eyes search his face with the same focused, analytical expression, which melts as she caresses - ever so gingerly - a new bruise on his cheekbone.

“This?” she asks again, almost inaudible.

He swallows, his Adam’s apple moving up and down; feels swallowed, too, by her, like a fairytale witch, as if her eyes were black wells, and he falling into them.

“Domestic abuser.”

Karen nods, her stomach unknotting, a strange serenity descending over her. This feels ritualistic, in a way; a sort of reverse eulogy for the men who have died in this ink-black night, a black prayer extolling their assassin, paying tribute to each sign of violence on his body.

She removes his life-jacket - wordlessly, her hands at his sides unfastening it, then discarding it on the floor, the long white skull looking emptily up to the ceiling.

She tugs at the hem of his shirt, peeling it away from his chest; Frank lifts his arms above his head, catches the shirt in his hands and tosses it away.

Karen’s hands settle on the nape of his neck, caressing the short, soft hair there; her heart is beating in her stomach now, and she believes he must certainly be able to feel it through her back, cradled by his hands - she thinks, impossibly, that his hands are collecting her whole self and holding it, gently, in his palms.

They kiss, meeting in the middle, hot and wet and open mouthed, with a hunger for more  _ simmering _ \- like thin fire racing below their skin; her eyes are shut close and she wants, wants, wants, clawing at his shoulder blade, bodies pressing together.

He unbuttons her shirt, slowly, one button at a time, silk gliding off her shoulders and hanging at her waist; he unzips her skirt, and his hands are burning hot when they set on her bottom, holding her to him as her clothes fall to the floor, pooling at her feet.

They leave his pants next to their shoes and her clothes and move to his bedroom. He sits on the edge of the bed and stares up at her, eyes liquid, his hands still at her waist; then he kisses her lower belly, and presses his forehead to her stomach as he slides her panties off; her lip trembles, and her hands go to his hair.

She puts one knee down on the bed next to his thigh, then the other, steadying herself by grabbing his shoulders. Frank’s hands trace a path up her back to the fastening of her bra, black lace under his lips, which he removes to reveal her hardened nipples; he kisses them, wets them with his tongue, and her nails scratch his scalp, her elbows digging into his shoulders.

His left hand goes down to cup her pussy; two fingers find her clitoris and start massaging it in slow, circular motions, slide lower inside her slit to her wetness, then go back to her clitoris, eliciting a moan from her.

She takes his cock in her fist, pumping up and down and stroking her thumb on the head; his breathing hitches when she lowers her body on him, her hand still on his cock, guiding him inside her. She starts rolling her hips, slowly, half breathless, until they find a rhythm; his hipbones press into the flesh of her thighs, a dull pain in the back of her mind.

The words die inside her a hundred times: I love you. I love you. She buries them, as soon as they come to the surface, before she can let her lips form the sound; she just closes her eyes and holds him, and she makes that be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank the amazing and sweet Sofia and Agata for the support and beta reading. Sofia, it's highly probable this wouldn't have seen a second chapter without your kind words, so thank you.
> 
> Constructive criticism is very welcome and will be incredibly appreciated! This is the first time I finish something I write in a very, very long time and I'd love to hear reactions, to help me grow as a writer. Thank you in advance, and thank you for reading my story.


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